


Hunting Bears

by ekbe_vile



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Bondage, Fallen!Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Post-Season/Series 06 AU, Spanking, Triggers, bottom!Dean, dubcon, fragile!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:24:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2019780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekbe_vile/pseuds/ekbe_vile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel shouldn't be able to enter Dean's dreams, but that doesn't seem to matter.</p>
<p>A post-Season 6 AU angst fest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting Bears

HUNTING BEARS

 

The dream takes a familiar shape.   
  
Dean knows this brittle earth choked with rocks and chaparral, knows the angry geometry of mountains against a cloud-threaded sky, wind that grabs and pulls and devours. The light comes from everywhere and nowhere, diffused in eerie blues and greens like an Antarctic night.   
  
He's been here before, several times in his dreams, but only once in life. Or un-life, the in-between. Waiting to die in a hospital with only a reaper for company, if he turned his head just right and let his vision go blurry, he could see it there just beyond the veil. In dreams and in death the layers of space are thinner.  
  
Castiel is here, near and far in the fashion of dreams, his back turned, shoulders slumped beneath the innocuous beige of his coat.  
  
This can only end badly.  
  
Dean's known it for a while – knew it that night when he pulled Castiel up from the rain-slick asphalt – knew it when Castiel turned back and saw the charred shadow of his own wings black and chalky on the ground. And now it's here, huge and ugly and inevitable.  
  
Dean pushes against the landscape, pushes toward him like walking through water, his control over his own body soft and imprecise. He finds his place beside Castiel, who acknowledges his presence with a brief flutter of eyelashes, as though he's expected.  
  
"Hey," Dean says and bumps Castiel's arm with his elbow. "You shouldn't be here."  
  
Castiel rolls one shoulder. "This is my dream."  
  
"Is it?"  
  
The look Castiel casts in his direction, one eyebrow arched, falls just short of contempt.   
  
Dean feels stuck. "Don't be a dick, I'm not mad or anything."  
  
But Castiel's posture seems to suggest otherwise. "My apologies," he says. "It was not my intention to intrude."  
  
"Don't do that. It's not your fault." Dean steps back, needs to put some distance between them, at times – a fallen angel is as heavy as a dead star, too much gravity to escape. "Let's just wake up, try again. On three?"  
  
Castiel nods, but it could be in response to anything. For all Dean knows, he could be hearing voices, his brothers – forever lost to him, still close enough to wound.  
  
For now, Dean takes it at face value. He counts down, "One, two, three..."  
  
*  
  
He drags himself into consciousness, the process painful like pulling a knife out of his own back. He lies there for a moment, in the dip his body has made in the mattress, before he turns his head to look at his bedmate.  
  
Castiel, stubbornly, remains asleep.  
  
Dean could try to wake him with a shake or his name, but Castiel will not appreciate it. He will spend the day sulking off somewhere in Bobby's scrapyard, and Dean will have to go looking for him and coax and plead and, finally, physically force him back to the house before the night falls.  
  
No, Dean doesn't need another one of those days. He has too much to worry about without the angel pulling a disappearing act and/or giving himself hypothermia. He lets Castiel sleep on.  
  
*  
  
Halfway down the stairs, the smell of coffee hits him. He feels it in his blood, in his aching bones, as though he's already downed his first cup.  
  
And then he smells the eggs.  
  
They're burning, and the sulfur stench turns his stomach with memories. Dean takes the rest of the steps two at a time, rushing to find Sam in the kitchen.  
  
His brother sits at the table, face buried in his hands as the eggs smoke in the skillet. "Hey, Sam," Dean announces his arrival, doesn't want to startle his brother as he hurries to take the eggs off the stove. They're shriveled and brown in the pan.  
  
"I'm sorry," Sam mutters. "I tried to..." He gestures vaguely behind him with his fingers.  
  
Dean lets his gaze shift from the eggs to the open packet of bacon on the counter. Uncooked like that, it could be any kind of flesh, sliced thin, peeling from the bone...  
  
Dean sighs as he scrapes the eggs into the trash. "It's okay," he says – picks up the bacon and makes to put it back in the fridge, but thinks better of it. He tosses the whole package in the garbage.  
  
Sam's voice comes small and delicate as a child's. "I wanted to do something nice for you," he mumbles into his hands.   
  
Dean feels the cracks in his heart cutting a little deeper.   
  
It hasn't been easy, since the wall in Sam's head came down, but it's getting better. Sam's not a vegetable, he's dealing with his memories of the Cage, and that should be enough.   
  
But Dean misses Bobby's coffee grinder (the _sound_ of it all but sent Sam into an epileptic fit) and he misses ketchup on his fries (the color is too vivid, the consistency familiar and unsettling). And he knows he should be endlessly thankful that his brother is here, alive and mostly sane – knows that no sacrifice should be too great. But that's it...it's not the _big_ things he's had to give up.  
  
"So breakfast's not your thing," Dean shrugs, mentally adding _bacon_ to his list of potential triggers (and it kills him, a little, because his mouth is watering at just the thought of it). "No big deal. How about some pancakes?"  
  
Sam nods, but the damage is already done. He will spend the rest of the day, if not the week, shaky and anxious and avoiding the light. ("It was so bright," he said, after he came around. "I closed my eyes but I could see everything.") As hard as he's fought, as far as he's come, Sam is still so fragile. Bobby's house isn't a padded room, but it may as well be.  
  
*  
  
In the end, it's Dean who cooks the pancakes and serves them to his brother. He can see the disappointment in Sam's face, disappointment in himself, but he doesn't mention it, doesn't try to soothe it away. He doesn't know if he can, anymore.  
  
Quiet hangs between them as thick as the dust in the air. Castiel tried cleaning the house when they first settled here, but Bobby snapped and cursed and told him he was messing up the _system_. Cas hasn't picked up a broom since, and focuses his energy outside, in the scrapyard. He has a way with engines, murmured something once about them not being so different from the heart. Dean doesn't think he was meant to hear that.  
  
Sam watches Dean push his food around on his plate. "How's Cas?" he asks, and the subtle insinuation in his voice, the tone that's asking something more, is so familiar, so _Sam_ , Dean almost forgets his brother is utterly broken.  
  
But he doesn't, shrugging instead, dodging eye contact. He thinks about lying – thinks, briefly, of telling Sam that Castiel is fine – but even like this, Sam would be able to sense the untruth.  
  
"He wandered into my dreams again," Dean confesses into his coffee.  
  
Sam sucks in a breath. "He doesn't mean to."  
  
Dean can't help the way he bristles, defensive the way he's always been about Castiel even now with _what they are to each other_ out in the open. "I know that," Dean mutters. "But he shouldn't even be able...he's fallen."  
  
A smile twitches at the corner of Sam's mouth. "You two do share a 'profound bond.'"  
  
"Shut up."  
  
It shouldn't hurt like this, hearing the beginnings of laughter in Sam's voice. There was a time he feared he'd never hear it again.  
  
Dean stands, dumps his plate in the sink with a terrible clatter. "I gotta get to work," he grumbles, voice sounding hollow, words meaningless in his own head. "Where's Bobby?"  
  
"Still sleeping." Sam moves his own dishes to the sink with more care than Dean. "He had a late night manning the phones, I think."  
  
Dean closes his eyes. He tries very hard not to sigh.  
  
"You go ahead, Dean," Sam encourages him. "I can hold down the fort for a few hours."  
  
Sam knows that Dean's less worried about someone working Bobby's phones and more hesitant to leave his brother by himself. But there's an earnestness in Sam's eyes, desperate for another chance to prove himself, and only Dean can give it to him. "You call if you need something," he sighs, "okay?"  
  
*  
  
It's coming on to four o'clock, another three cars still lined up outside the garage waiting for service, when Dean's phone vibrates in his back pocket.   
  
No one calls him, now, unless it's an emergency.  
  
He steps into the alley behind the garage, his stomach churning with nausea at Sam's name on the caller I.D. Dean takes three deep, deliberate breaths before he answers, "Sammy."  
  
 _Don't freak out,_ Sam's voice pleads over the line. _I just thought you'd want to know, before you got back._  
  
Adrenaline raises every hair on Dean's body, each one tingling to fight-or-flight. "Know what?"  
  
 _There was an accident,_ Sam explains, _in the scrapyard. Cas is hurt._  
  
Dean's skin burns simultaneously hot and cold; his stomach drops out. "How bad?"  
  
 _I...I don't know. I didn't see much._  
  
Of course he didn't – Sam can't stand the sight of blood, now.   
  
_Bobby's got him upstairs,_ Sam hurries to fill Dean's silence. _I'm sure it's nothing serious...Bobby would've called for an ambulance, if it were._  
  
Dean's not so sure about that. "I'll be there in thirty."  
  
*  
  
Dean waits at the bottom of the stairs, watches as Bobby comes down, wiping his hands on a towel. They don't speak, not here – move off into Bobby's study, where Dean can pull the sliding door shut, where they can talk without worrying Sam or Castiel might overhear.  
  
Bobby drops into his desk chair with a heavy sigh. "You didn't have to leave work early," he mutters, hand swiping through his beard. "Sam overreacted."  
  
"Not surprising," Dean grunts. He lowers himself into another seat, knees suddenly aching. Bobby pours a finger of whiskey from the stash behind his desk, pushes it toward Dean. He accepts it, even though he recognizes the label – Crowley's favorite poison, the demon's presence shadowing them even now.  
  
Dean drinks, hisses around the burn. "What happened?"  
  
"Idjit angel tried to move an engine block on his own," Bobby snorts, but the humor in his voice doesn't last. "He still forgets, sometimes...he's not as strong as he was."  
  
Dean would argue with that – Castiel doesn't _forget,_ he willfully ignores human weakness, as though if he doesn't acknowledge it, it'll go away. "How bad's he hurt?"  
  
"Far as I can tell he only pulled a muscle or two," Bobby shrugs. "Sliced his hand pretty ugly, but it could've been worse. I gave him a Valium and put him to bed."  
  
*  
  
Castiel sprawls across their bed in a tee shirt and sweats, arms folded down awkwardly against his sides, bare feet dangling off the end of the mattress. Dean hesitates in the doorway, watching – he looks like he's sleeping, no evidence of pain on the side of his face that isn't pressed into the pillow, but blood has already started to seep through the neatly wrapped bandage on his hand.  
  
"Stop looking at me like that," Castiel slurs into the pillow.   
  
Dean pushes past the involuntary shudder that works down his spine and settles on the edge of the mattress. "Like what?" he probes – tries for teasing, but comes off wounded. He doesn't know how to talk to Castiel, anymore – hopes the touch he places on the small of his lover's back fills in the silences.   
  
Castiel sighs, eyes slotting open to peer up at Dean. They're glassy, the blue dulled by painkillers and muscle relaxants. Dean has tried to keep Cas away from them, but he's thankful, now, that Bobby vetoed his decision to ban them from the house entirely. Castiel is still unaccustomed to human pain, and not very good at hiding it. And Dean can bear seeing Castiel hurt about as easily as he can Sam.  
  
"How's your back?" he asks, dares to rub small circles into the tight, dimpled muscles just above the low slung waist of his sweats.  
  
Castiel flinches and twists away. "Don't touch me."   
  
Sucker-punch. Dean jerks his hand back, all the air gone out of his lungs, none coming back in.  
  
*  
  
When Bobby finds Dean curled up on the couch the next morning, he grunts, but keeps his questions to himself. For that, Dean is grateful.  
  
*  
  
He catches Sam sharing a Xanax with Castiel. Dean doesn't explode, keeps his temper carefully in check as he turns and walks out of the room. The last thing any of them needs is for him to lose his shit over some anti-anxiety pills. But Dean can't remember the last time he was this angry. This disappointed. Sam knows better than to feed Castiel drugs. Even soul-damaged, he knows.  
  
Maybe that's why he follows Dean out onto the porch, even though the sun is winter-bright, glaring off ice-crusted snow.  
  
Sam squints and stuffs his hands in his pockets, shuffles his feet in what's an obvious urge to move closer to his brother. All Dean can see, right then, is little Sammy, six years old and repentant because he violated some rule he didn't understand.  
  
Dean can't yell – he can't even be angry, anymore. "Those are for you," he chastises, keeps his tone quiet. "Not Cas. You. He doesn't need them."  
  
Sam's muscles tighten, a defiance Dean hasn't heard in some time edging into his voice. "But he _does_ need them...can't you see that? He's falling apart."  
  
"No," Dean shakes his head. "Cas has an addictive personality – he doesn't understand moderation, he'll abuse anything you give him."  
  
"Have you considered maybe that's because he's in pain?"  
  
Sam knows about Dean's long-ago visit to a future that will never be. He knows this is the source of his worries about Castiel's capacity for addiction, knows it's grounded in possibility, not reality. Dean knows that, too, but it doesn't stop the low roll of panic in his belly whenever Cas so much as pops an aspirin.  
  
"Dean," Sam presses, "he feels powerless. Can you imagine how terrifying that must be for him? All the time, feeling like he has no control..."  
  
Yes, Dean can imagine – does every day, whether intentional or not. He has lived powerless, vulnerable and naked – he wouldn't wish it on anyone.  
  
*  
  
While his back heals, Castiel takes up journaling. He conquers the kitchen table with pens and newspaper scraps and notebooks, working with a dedication that makes Dean shiver.  
  
By the end of the first week, Cas has already filled five fat books with his words. Dean picks one up, once, and flips through the pages – feels a little dirty, like peeking at a teenaged girl's diary. But there's nothing remotely scandalous, nothing personal to make him blush, no secret confessions. _Nothing about Dean._   
  
Castiel's notebooks are filled with memories and knowledge, an angelic lifetime of trivia: spells, sigils, maps to long forgotten cities and monstrous bloodlines. Castiel writes what comes to him, anything and everything, no rhyme or reason, scrawled across the pages in cramped handwriting.  
  
Dean sits beside him in the evening, pretends to read a magazine even though it's obvious he's watching Castiel. Watching the way he bends over the table, pen flying over the pages, teeth clamped down cruelly on his lower lip. It's a physical labor, the strain of remembering etched into his brow.  
  
And then he stops, makes a half-strangled noise like a sob and lowers his head to the tabletop. There's ink on his hands and his face and his mouth is pinched in a grimace, trying not to cry out, trying not to succumb to despair.  
  
Dean touches his arm, hand sliding to the back of his neck. Not rubbing, just resting there, present.  
  
"I'm forgetting," Castiel murmurs. He leaves it at that, but the rest is there in the slump of his shoulders and the red in his eyes. It's all slipping away, faster than he can put it down. Eons, fading into nothing like a dream. What's left is incomplete, distorted. What's left is just...this.  
  
Dean feels sick. "I'm sorry," he whispers, and he is – every day, guilt burns his esophagus, makes him nauseated and weak. Because it's his fault, _he_ did this to his friend, to his lover.  
  
Castiel is human because of Dean.  
  
*  
  
In bed, Dean traces the scars on Castiel's body – the faded lines of the banishing sigil – the newer marks, still pink, made by an angel blade. Dean lingers on the latter, presses his lips to the jagged tear along Castiel's side, rubs his fingers into the puncture above a failed kidney, laves his tongue over the angry knot just to the right of the angel's human heart.  
  
Castiel lies there and endures Dean's ministrations as silently as he did the two weeks spent in the hospital after his fall. That he survived at all seemed to be a miracle, but Castiel resented his body's refusal to die almost as much as he did Dean's failure to kill him properly.  
  
*  
  
His dreams sink into the mundane. He's at the garage, replacing the muffler on a '96 Nissan Sentra, or he's standing outside a gas-and-go against a faceless sky, pumping fuel into the Impala. He catches himself, once, resenting the banality of his nighttime imaginings, but he's quick to think better of it. Too easily could return the dreams of Hell, the faces of people he's lost, Sam writhing in a morass of fire.   
  
He should be grateful that his dreams, now, are no more exciting than a poorly decorated motel room. He knows it's a dream because the wallpaper keeps shifting, the world of his subconscious too fickle to hold down a single pattern for long. Dean even knows what to expect, thinks he's been here before, dreamed of eating pizza and watching _Columbo_. He remembers it because of the trench coat.  
  
And that's another sign that he's dreaming – Castiel, standing there at the end of the bed, shoulders hunched under the weight of his coat. In reality, it's long gone – now Castiel wears tee shirts and a faded grey hoody, jeans and a scuffed leather jacket. This Castiel, staring down at Dean with a tilt to his head and furrow in his brow, is still an angel.  
  
Dean leans back where he reclines on the bed, the unforgiving stiffness of the mattress beneath him like coming home. But when he smiles, the feel of it on his lips is _wrong_ , and when he tries to tell Cas to quit crashing his dreams, the words get stuck in his throat.  
  
"Dean," Castiel says. It's a command in spite of its softness, perhaps even because of it – quiet power in the low rumble of the angel's voice, gravel-rough and heavy with intent. His hand moves at his side, the twitch of his fingers beckoning as though to a beloved dog.  
  
And Dean comes – is moving before he can even think about it, pushing himself onto his hands and knees and crawling across the bed to where Castiel stands. He's already pushing his face into Castiel's upturned palm, nuzzling and rubbing against his wrist, before he realizes what he's doing. Even then, he can't stop himself – knows with a thrill of dread that _this is not his dream_ – but Castiel's touch is gentle, his fingers soothing as they slide back through Dean's hair.  
  
"Good," Castiel murmurs, catches Dean's chin and tilts his face up, inspecting. "Good."  
  
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dean knows that he should be angered by Castiel's tone, is not a pet to be cooed over and praised for obedience, but he can't seem to bring himself to care. It's been so long since he's heard any sort of affection in Castiel's voice. He'd forgotten how he craves it.  
  
"Up," Castiel commands, stepping away, and Dean hurries to follow him.   
  
His legs wobble beneath him, his toes curling in the shag carpet. It feels so real – the heat of Castiel's body, the smell of cinnamon and cloves on his breath as he leans forward and brushes his lips along Dean's jaw.   
  
Dean makes a sound he would _never_ admit to in waking, somewhere between a whimper and a whine.   
  
"Ssh," Castiel breathes over his ear, hand cupping his cheek, sliding down to his throat. Dean closes his eyes, tilts his head back – bares his neck to Castiel, whose fingers work loose the buttons on his shirt.  
  
Dean drops to his knees before he can finish, his legs folding underneath him seemingly of their own accord. _This is what Castiel dreams,_ dreams Dean's submission on the floor of a cheap motel room. He leans forward, his hands grasping at Castiel's slender hips the way they would in life, buries his face in the crotch of Castiel's slacks and _breathes_ , huffing in the scent of arousal and power.  
  
A pleased rumble rises in the angel's throat. Castiel bites down on his lip, lets his eyes slide shut, indulging the urgent nuzzling and mouthing of his still fully clothed cock. But then his fingers clench in Dean's hair, jerking his head back with a sharp, "No."  
  
It hurts like the world ending.   
  
Then he's naked, reality shifting in sideways dream logic. Castiel holds his arms behind his back, pressing in tight against the bow of Dean's spine. "It's okay," Castiel hushes over Dean's shoulder, so close his breath gathers warm and moist on the stubble of Dean's cheek.   
  
One hand moves to stroke down Dean's side, the other still holding his wrists – the touch eases the tension from Dean's muscles as much as Castiel's voice, reassuring, "I'm not angry. This is for you."  
  
Dean hears the whip of Castiel's belt sliding from his pants – feels the leather, body warm, cinched just above his elbows. Castiel pulls the strip tight, ties it off, binding Dean's arms so that they pull his shoulders back, force him to push his chest out. His hands might be free, but he couldn't fight even if he wanted to.  
  
Dimly, Dean knows he should struggle, knows he should demand Castiel wake up, let him go. But he has no control, here, and he can't help wanting what his dream self wants, trembling with the need for it. This is Castiel's dream, and Castiel wants Dean to want it, too.  
  
Castiel slips his tie between Dean's teeth, knotting the blue silk at the nape of his neck, and Dean _moans_. His cock hangs full and heavy between his legs, sweat glossy on his skin. Castiel tugs experimentally at the belt, and then the gag, using it to turn Dean's head from side to side.  
  
"I don't know how to get through to you," Castiel sighs, and now there's disappointment in his voice. He guides Dean back to the bed, keeps a hand on his shoulder to help him balance as he climbs onto the mattress.  
  
Dean doesn't even try to speak around the tie, doesn't need to – he lowers his head – makes a quiet, apologetic noise. He leans into Castiel's strength as the angel positions him on his knees, tips him forward so that his shoulders press into the mattress. Dean turns his head toward Castiel, sheets scratchy on his cheek, breath coming faster and harder through his nostrils. Fear prickles at the base of his spine.  
  
A wounded look draws Castiel's brows together, parts his lips with a pained gasp. "Trust me, Dean." He reaches out to pet Dean's hair, to stroke down the back of his neck. "Please. That's all I ask of you."  
  
For a moment Dean's head spins, dizzy with déjà vu, the words so familiar. But he can't focus, can't place them in space and time – now all he knows is the pleasant thrum of Castiel's touch, the bite of the leather binding his elbows, the damp cloth between his teeth. Now he knows Castiel would let him go, if he asked.  
  
Dean doesn't ask. He whines behind the gag, cranes his neck in a futile struggle to press his face into Castiel's palm, eager for the warmth and smell of his hand.  
  
Then everything _shifts_ , and Castiel is behind him, knees pressed deliberately inside of Dean's, holding his legs open. Dean feels Castiel's bare thighs on the backs of his own, feels the bob and poke of Castiel's cock under the soft folds of his ass.  
  
And then he feels the heat of Castiel's hand, stinging on his flesh, the blow so sudden and fierce Dean cries out and lurches forward in an instinctive attempt to escape.  
  
"Ssh," Castiel says behind him, voice low and steady. He rubs his knuckles into the tender flesh of Dean's ass, massaging away the hurt, pain dissolving into pleasure.  
  
Then he slaps the other side, and Dean wails.  
  
"Easy," Castiel says, but this time there's a hitch in his voice. He bows over Dean to kiss the small of his back, to rub powerful hands up his sides, clutching, possessive. "Trust me," he whispers into Dean's skin, "please."  
  
Dean's body sags in acquiescence. He muffles his whimpers and cries in the pillow, feels the burn of tears down his cheeks as acutely as he does Castiel's carefully measured blows. And all the while the angel murmurs his praise, alternates pain with the too good kneading of aching muscles until, it seems, one cannot exist without the other.  
  
And when it stops, Dean's body hums a minor chord, sad and sweet, muscles vibrating like a well tuned six string.  
  
Castiel bends forward to lick and nuzzle behind Dean's ear, hands sliding up Dean's chest to cover his reckless, thrashing heart. "Dean," the angel breathes, voice raw and broken and _not right_...  
  
But Dean's cock throbs, reminds him it's still there, still wanting. He cants his hips, presses back against Castiel and feels the angel's answering erection slide between his legs.  
  
Castiel chokes back a sob against Dean's neck. He shifts his weight, mounting Dean like an animal, all instinct, head of his cock catching on the rim of Dean's hole and _pushing_.  
  
Dean groans through his teeth, clamped down on the tie. His body opens for Castiel as though the angel belongs there, as though all along Dean has been missing a piece of himself and now it's finally slotting back into place.  
  
Castiel starts slow, searching for a rhythm, face buried between Dean's straining shoulders. And then he's found it, the angle and the tempo and Dean moans, stretching his neck and curling his fingers as bliss fucking _blossoms_ from the depths of him. And it's everything gorgeous and stupid – the first crocuses of spring – a rolling wave that keeps cresting and cresting and never falls.  
  
"...for you," Castiel's panting in his ear. "Everything, Dean, it's for you..."  
  
And then the wave breaks, crashing down, and Dean's body goes molten with the white heat of his orgasm.  
  
*  
  
Dean gasps awake, nerves still rolling with aftershocks. He doesn't open his eyes right away, but he doesn't need to. He hears the heaviness of Castiel's breath beside him, feels the shudder that runs through his body and into the mattress.  
  
Castiel touches Dean's cheek, fingers unsteady. A thumb brushes beneath his eyes, palm angled to cup his jaw. "Dean?"  
  
He considers feigning sleep, for a moment – misses, in a perverse way, waking up to find Castiel watching him. But he can't pretend, not with his lover's fingers threading the lengthening hair just above his ear. Dean peels his eyes open – blinks back at Castiel, whose own stare is so blessedly confused Dean can't help a smile. "Hey," he says.  
  
"Dean, I..." Castiel fumbles for words, his gaze flicking down the bed to the two damp spots in the sheet. The evidence.   
  
When he withdraws his hand, Dean feels its absence like a severed limb.  
  
Castiel sits up, back against the wall. Brow furrowed, he shakes his head. "I don't understand why this is happening." His head thunks back on the plaster, rolls in denial upon his shoulders. "I'm _fallen_ , I shouldn't be able to enter your dreams..."  
  
Doubt rises from the bottom of Dean's gut. " _My_ dreams?"  
  
Castiel looks at Dean as though he were profoundly stupid. The morning light glows around him, highlighting the tips of his disheveled hair, casting grey shadows over the rounded planes of his face. "Nevermind," he mutters – throws back the blankets and climbs out of bed, gone before Dean can stop him.  
  
*  
  
Snow whites out the sky.   
  
At the garage, the bay doors remain closed against the wind. There's no ventilation. The air is dense with the smell of oil and gasoline; exhaust fumes and burned rubber.   
  
Dean can't think beyond the cloying desire to go home. All he wants is the warmth of his bed and Castiel.  
  
But the storm carries on even after the garage has closed for the day, and Dean has to hang around an extra two and a half hours, waiting for it to die down. Even then, with the snow tapered off to the occasional flurry, it takes twice as long to get back to Bobby's house.  
  
Castiel is already asleep, curled into a ball in the center of their bed. Dean stands back a moment, watching, before he tugs the blankets up to cover Castiel's bare shoulder. He huffs into his pillow, burrowing deeper beneath the covers, but does not wake.  
  
*  
  
Dean dreams of a park bench in late autumn, looking over a children's slide, a swing set. He sits with his elbows on his knees, tasting the change of seasons on the air.  
  
Castiel is beside him, the slump of his shoulders lost in the bulk of his trench coat. He lifts his chin, blinking as though just realizing where he is before turning his gaze sideways to Dean. "This place holds special significance for you."  
  
"Yeah," Dean smiles, but it hurts – he remembers the first time Castiel, angel of the Lord, admitted that he had doubts. It was the beginning of a long fall.  
  
Castiel doesn't comment on it, just nods and shifts his attention back to the playground, content in the quiet.  
  
"Cas..."  
  
He looks back to Dean, eyes guarded.  
  
"I'm sorry," Dean breathes. "I wasn't there for you."  
  
The quiet unravels between them, the sounds of children playing in the park distant like a memory. Dread settles in Dean's stomach, a terrible anticipation that surges through his muscles, telling him to get up, to run, that he's made some sort of mistake.   
  
But then he feels the warmth of Castiel's hand in his, and when he looks up, Castiel's giving him that familiar half-smile. He leans into Dean, kisses his mouth and his jaw and his throat, lips shaping a promise against skin –  
  
"On three?"  
  
  
END

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for malwinchester.livejournal.com, who generously bid on me in a charity auction. It was posted on ekbe-vile.livejournal.com on July 4th, 2011. Title from the Radiohead song.


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